Portlaoise praised for its welcoming ways

Laois Chief Superintendent John Scanlan praised Portlaoise for its welcoming ways. 

He made the comments at a recent and his last Laois Joint Policing Committee meeting in Portlaoise. 

“Everyone is trying to do their best. That’s what I would say to you. The country is constructed of essentially 99 percent very decent, honest, hard working people with some basic aspirations in life to live and raise a family and bring them on in the world and provide, education, health and a roof over their heads,” said Chief Supt Scanlan. 

“If you take the demographics here in Portlaoise, 30 percent of the population here are non national by their origin and yet despite people trying to engender difficulties in our society around these people, extremists complaining about them coming here, people have opened their arms in this town in particular to non nationals coming here and have embraced them and they make a valuable contribution,” he said. 

Laois TD Brian Stanley agreed with the Chief Superintendent’s comments.  

“I concur with his remarks. We are very fortunate that the vast majority of people, despite all the challenges we face, the vast, vast majority of  people are decent people, regardless of their background.”

“There are unfortunately a minority out there who try to whip up different forms of ill feeling towards different groups etc, it hasn’t prevailed and hopefully it doesn’t prevail,” he said. 

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Chief Superintendent John Scanlan is due to retire having served the people of Laois for the past eleven years.